Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

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Add 1004 Blog Subscribers in 26 Days – From Feedblitz to Mad Mimi

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

How to Add 1004 Blog Subscribers in 26 Days @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

You know what is better than analyzing blog stats? Learning how to add 1004 blog subscribers in 26 days with almost no cost, but with a rewarding payoff.

Is a Slow Start Really Necessary?

When I first started my blog (2 1/2 years ago), I looked at several newsletter providers or rather I should say email delivery providers. My top four choices at the time were Mad Mimi, Mail Chimp, Feedblitz and Mail Poet.

I chose feedblitz because sending out blog posts with a rss feed “newsletter type” format was not time consuming.

What do I mean by that? I need to explain first about what it means to be clear about your goal when you begin to blog.

The absolute number one goal is awesome content. Time is needed to find your voice and sharpen your focus. Did I mention that takes time?

Mommyhood alone makes finding the time to prepare a well written newsletter that bubbles with your personality and tips that you are burning to share seem like a super human feat.

Add homeschooling to the mix, and you almost feel defeated. I say almost because attitude is everything and a huge dose of  patience is key.

What I am saying is that when I first started, Feedblitz allowed me to send a newsletter type of post where I could share all my blog posts without having to take time to add them to my newsletter.

Check a few boxes of what I wanted to send in the feedblitz set up, add my header, and click send was the extent of what I wanted to do at the time. I didn’t have to recreate the blog posts like you do in a newsletter format with Mad Mimi.

In Mam Mimi, you add images and some text or all the text and prepare like a newsletter. Feedblitz used the images you already have on your blog and there is very little to no writing that I had to do.

This is important to understand when choosing how to communicate with your followers in the beginning days of blogging.

I needed time to focus on my blog (and homeschool first) and not prepare a newsletter right away. Getting my content to my followers and growing my list were my goals for the first two years. First things first.

See, I don’t believe that delivering a newsletter (content yes) to your followers is the first goal when you are a beginner blogging. You can’t do that and blog stunning content daily.

Oh, you could, but would it be as snazzy? Probably not.

Feedblitz (and yes it has a huge techie learning curve) had more bells and whistles than the other providers and I started off with their free trial period.

Their price scale for paying for subscribers was nice and slow in the beginning. The best part was that  I could pay for a year and get a discount and it locks in the present number of subscribers.

This means that if my subscribers increase and fall into another price bracket before the year is up, I am still paid up and not paying for those extra subscribers.

I could also send newsletters on demand. This means I could communicate with my followers about anything without or without having blogging content.

This allowed me to communicate with my followers in a more personal way when I needed to.

Also, by using feedblitz initially, I could focus on creating products in my shop.

Lesson 1 Learned: When you’re a beginner blogger, use the best email service with the most bells and whistles you can get and not the best newsletter service. You have to focus first on content, your blog goals and product.

However, the time came to move on to the second part of my blogging business goals, which are to increase followers rapidly, make money beyond just paying for blog expenses and sharing tips in my newsletters too.

I don’t want to wait for five years to do that.

Up Your Game

However, being a budget savvy blogger is also important.  I noticed how Feedblitz moves up significantly to a huge price bracket when you reach between 500o to 9,999 followers ,which is where I am right now. And having 5K followers is not near like having 10K followers. That is just too wide of a gap to pay one price.

Enter Mad Mimi.

I went back to the newsletter providers I had researched earlier to compare prices now that my subscribers are knocking on 9K.

Knowing now that I had successfully accomplished a huge techie learning curve with Feedblitz, I was ready for Mad Mimi.

My focus now is on sharing creative homeschooling tips in a newsletter while I add my blogging content that is now overflowing.

Did I mention that Mad Mimi is cheaper as well?

Mad Mimi costs $27.00 for 5,000 subscribers and $42.0o dollars for 10,000 subscribers. Feedblitz cost $75.00 for 5,000 to 9,999. See what I had noticed?

Mad Mimi has a price increase that goes up slowly, as it should, as you build your list instead of such a huge range in followers, which costs more with Feedblitz.

Not only that but Mad Mimi is super easy to use, beautiful and very user friendly for both blogger and follower. It makes sending my blog posts and a time worthy newsletter super simple too.

However, the other significant part of using Mad Mimi is that when I started using Mad Mimi, my subscribers have doubled for the day. I have gone from 20+ subscribers each day to 40+ and I  am working on tripling them now.

The other thing I am using is the free icegram which I brag about a lot. You can use one of their premade popups or create your own graphic, which I did. Mad Mimi and icegram have made for a great partnership with minimal cost.

Feedblitz just recently got web forms that you can create, but before that the web forms were poor quality. Though it didn’t affect my growing significantly, it did not contribute to it either.

Icegram allows me to show my personality and create a warm invitation to follow me.

Lesson 2 Learned: I trusted my gut instead of going with Mad Mimi, Mail Chip or even Mail Poet (which I like too) in the beginning. It’s important to change when you need to and more importantly your newsletter provider should help you grow rapidly. Too, it doesn’t have to cost a lot to grow your followers if you’re willing to stay flexible. And web forms are important and should be inviting and easy to use for both blogger and subscriber.

Now that I have added 1004 subscribers for the last 26 days and growing substantially each day by now using Mad Mimi, I hope these steps will help you to grow just as fast.

Do you have any questions?

Also, be sure to grab the beginner blog tips at my 5 Days of Homeschool Blogging Basics: Purpose, Plan, Performance, Persistence and Payoff.

I know you will love my Forever Blog Planner that I created much like my 7 Step Homeschool Planner. I know you would love it too because I help you step by step to choose the pages you want in your blog planner and and the best part is that you receive forever updates. Be sure to download the free printable from the planner set.

Forever Blog Planner Preview @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

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Also, check out the must-have book, iBlog Pro, by homeschool bloggers, I am proud to be a co-author.

iBlog Pro by iHomeschool Network

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

 

When Your Homeschooled Child is Interrogated (And How to Get Past It)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When Your Homeschooled Child is Interrogated (And How to Get Past It) @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Normally, we love to tell curious folks that we homeschool. Too, it’s okay for others to be concerned because we don’t want to be touchy and overly sensitive about our choice. However, it’s quite another thing when your homeschooled child is interrogated. After all, if somebody was curious and looking for information they wouldn’t be interrogating your child, right?

Today, in sharing when your homeschooled child is interrogated (and how to get past it) I hope to infuse you with a few points to help you stay one step ahead of a situation like that.

What are you looking for?

Too, having your child questioned by a family member, like a mother or mother in law, than by a total stranger is hard. Saying things like what does that sign say or what did you learn today to our children may give them the impression that your parenting and homeschooling should be judged.

In learning how to diffuse the situation, you have to decide what are you looking for. In other words, whether others affirm or condemn your choice, will it affect your decision to homeschool? Are you really seeking their approval?

In a close family, it’s normal to want the approval of family members, but reminding yourself that you will never ever please everybody is sobering.

It comes back to what are you looking for. Are you looking to give your child the best education you can possible give him or please family members? Ideally, we want both, but sometimes we can’t have that.

Having a determined mindset from the beginning helps you cope better with the situation because the go jump in the lake approach is probably not a good reply.

Next, I have learned through helping other homeschoolers that things only get worse if they are allowed to go on for a time.

For example, most parents feel pretty comfortable talking to their own adult child and know what they can say or not say, but to talk to the daughter in law or son in law can be different. Sometimes a mother in law feels at more liberty to speak her mind when it may not be solicited.

And don’t get me wrong, I am all ears for any pearls of wisdom that come from parents that have already successfully raised children, they should be honored.

However, in a family where the adult children are now raising their own children, it their sole responsibility to raise and homeschool them.

Suppressing the the situation is best done by the dad taking the lead if he is talking to his own mother.

Start off the conversation by saying questions to you about how the kids are homeschooled are always welcomed. However there is a difference in wanting to know how the children are progressing and passive aggressive type of comments to your children, which is setting an example for your children to undermine your authority.

Speaking parent to parent helps your mother or mother in law to take the problems to a parenting issue, which is what homeschooling really is all about. If she can see that she could be possibly undermining your authority in front of the kids, you could soften the situation.

Sometimes that does not work and there are times where the law has to be laid down. I have found that instead of saying we will not have anything to do with you, it is better to not take things to that level – yet.

Is Passive Aggressive Questioning Okay?

Instead, say that until the questioning stops or passive aggressive comments stop, your family will  not have a relationship with her. It is sad if a situation has to come to that end and hopefully, it will not.

Try to remember that most grandparents no doubt have a deep love for your kids and their doubts and disapproval come from there.

If it is a total stranger questioning your child, it is easier to just say that your decision is not up for debate or discussion and then change the subject.

Every situation is different when somebody starts questioning your child. On the one hand, a person may just be curious. On the other hand, if an adult has or had kids, they should know that the child should not be questioned about your parenting decision and that is not something to take lightly.

I try to be transparent about our homeschooling, always ready to give an answer for those interested in homeschooling because I want to inform and not automatically assert bad motives.

And finally, try to remember that if you are having a bad homeschool day share with somebody else who homeschools. Though it may be comfortable complaining to family members, if those family members are not supportive of  homeschooling, then you may be bringing more stress on yourself.

Even though family and friends may not understand that questioning your homeschooling goes directly to questioning your authority as a parent, try to cut them some slack and keep the focus on where it should be which is what is best for your child.

Has anybody ever interrogated your child? How did you do with it?

Also, look at these other tips and helps:

Hugs and love ya,

Also look at 3 Homeschooling Myths Debunked, and Should A Child Have a Choice to Return To Public School?

Check out these books too if you need to recharge your homeschooling conviction!

Lies Homeschooling Moms Believe
When Homeschooling Gets Tough: Practical Advice to Stay on Course
Homeschooling at the Speed of Life: Balancing Home, School, and Family in the Real World

Free Ancient Greece Can You Answer Minibook

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Free Ancient Greece true or false minibook @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I am never ashamed to admit that sometimes we school upside down, sideways and sometimes backwards, but we always go forward. The free Ancient Greece Can You Answer Minibook that I am sharing today is an example of what I mean by the way we homeschool.

We love doing our unit studies and we add lapbooks in for enrichment as we plod along and study many different things. Sometimes we speed through them and sometimes not, like the Ancient Greece lapbook.

FREE ANCIENT GREECE LAPBOOKS

Since this is my third or fourth time around studying Ancient Greece, I have focused on hands-on activities with Tiny.

Be sure you grab the Free Ancient Greece Go Fish Game, Free 4 tab minibook, the Ancient Greece Pull tab book along with the hands on math, making a chariot, making baklava, grab a list of living history books, grab a great big list of Ancient Greece freebies and do a refraction activity.

Don’t forget to grab my first Ancient Greece lapbook here and Ancient Civilization here .(Minoan and Mycenaean civilization)

I luv my followers and make it special for them here when I can.

This freebie is a subscriber only freebie! This means you get access to the exclusive area for subscribers and can download this printable there after you follow my blog.

I would love for you to follow me and give me the opportunity to help you along in your homeschool journey.

Important: IF you are already an email reader, please read this below instead of emailing me right away.

Though I love your emails, it can take a while for me to answer you.

1.) If you are a daily email reader, the private link to the subscriber’s only page was sent to you immediately when you joined my blog. Look for that email in your inbox.

2.) If you are a weekly email reader, the link is sent to you at the bottom of EVERY newsletter. If you have been getting my blog posts, then check at the very bottom of one of my recent newsletters for the link.

Hugs and love ya,

March 31 Days of Dinner Ideas Menu

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

March 31 Days of dinner

This year one of my goals is to share with you my insider tips on how I stay organized when it comes to meal planning and that is planning for 31 days is the key. Hands down it beats other types of planning for several reasons. Sure you can plan for 7 days or 2 weeks, but I will share why 31 day meal planning is a huge sanity saver for me. Too, I am sharing my free March 31 days of dinner ideas menu.

31 Day Planning means Flexibility, Saving Money and Being Healthier. That Equals Smarter.

At the end of this post, you can grab two more 31 day meal plans, which are January and February. More on that in a minute because first I want to share another tip or two for meal planning.

I know planning for 31 days may sound like it is one more weighted thing to do on your growing to-do list when homeschooling.

However, nothing is more important than feeding your family meals that not only reflect your family’s unique likes, dislikes, allergies and must haves, but also you do not want to compromise their health while homeschooling for the long run.

It may not be one of the things that new bees think they will hear when they go through my workshops, but first on the list is organizing the living areas and shoring up the meal planning.

Sometimes it’s easier to homeschool and forget about the meals, believe me, I have been there.

It wasn’t because I wasn’t interested or didn’t know how to organize when I started homeschooling, I just didn’t realize that planning far out was the key.

Sure, it takes me another hour or so to meal plan for the whole month, but the return is SWEET.

What I mean by that is that some weeks end sooner than I want them to and then I’m faced again with a new grocery list and dinner ideas for the following week.

This is not the case with 31 days of dinner ideas because I have the next week planned for me.

So during the month, I normally have an hour or two that I can plan for the following month and the really sweet pay off is that I can plan in chunks during the month when I am in the mood.

The flexibility of planning for 31 days too is that contrary to what some may think, I have no problem switching around my ideas to fit the needs we have for the week. In other words, my dinner ideas on certain days aren’t etched in stone. BUT, to have that many ideas at my finger tips that my family loves is worth every ounce of energy I put into menu planning.

Stress has just been pushed wayyyyyyyyyyyy down low and living and savoring each day way up highhhhhhhhhhh.

Free 31 Days of Dinner Ideas

I’ll share some more tips next month too, but in the meantime, I am sharing my free March 31 days of dinner ideas menu.

This menu reflects the likes, dislikes and needs of my family. We love meat, we like variety and try to eat less beef, though we love it. We also, love different forms of vegetables and one pot dinners are a must for me while I homeschool.

Too, I share 31 days each month regardless if the month has 31 days or not because I want ideas and recipes that my family will eat.

Grab January dinner ideas along with an editable menu planner here.

(We repeated two meals in February because we didn’t have BBQ sauce like we liked in Ecuador or made chicken pot pie, so a couple of meals I repeated.)

Free 31 Editable Menu Planner. Because menu planning for a longer period of time makes you a smarter, healthier and better homeschool mom. @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

And grab February dinner ideas here.

31 days of dinner menu

Are you following along and doing this with me? What are your struggles?

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Top 10 Free Popular Homeschool History Printables

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I wanted to share with you what my readers love here when it comes to history printables. Be sure you have grabbed all of these top 10 free popular homeschool history printables.

With all the free printables I have created, the number one spot goes to the What is History minibook on the Ancient Civilization Unit Study page.

Top 10 Popular Free History Printables @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

The number two spot or printable is ironically on the same page, Ancient Civilization Unit Study and it is the free Mesopotamia Cover sheet.

Essential Homeschool History Printables

Fast forward quite a few years and the third spot is my Lewis and Clark Unit Study and Lapbook. (Note: This was free for a limited time.)

Still moving forward to modern history, you are really loving the Titanic timeline printable, which came in fourth place.

In fifth place, we go back in time again and this time the Ancient Greece Geography minibook got fifth place.

Taking sixth place is Hammurabi from Babylon, which is another printable from the ancients on the Ancient Civilization Unit Study .

Coming in at seventh place, eighth and ninth place are all printables from my Egypt unit study which too are all from the Ancient Civilization Unit Study .

Egypt Map
Egypt  Famous Queens
Egypt Pharoahs and Queens Front Page

Finally, rounding out the top 10 popular history printables on my site is the Westward Expansion timeline on my Westward Ho Unit study and Lapbook.

I love getting a peek into what rocks your homeschool world, but more than anything it shows me what you use and love here so that I can continue adding more history printables for you.

Did your favorites make the list? What are you favorite homeschool history printables here? What would you like to see more of? (ok, it doesn’t hurt to ask)

Check out these other articles:
How to Use a History Spine to Build Your Study of History
8 Ways to Teach Homeschool History Other Than Chronologically.
How to Teach History in 14 Lessons (From Daunting to Doable)

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.